Paging the beemeristi

A colleague of mine likes the look of the F800ST.

He's moving up from a scooter.

I know zip about beemers.

Good points, bad points about this model? Things to look our for if
buying one?

Suggestions for other bikes for him to look at? I've listed Bandit,
Hornet, Fazer, Thundercat, SV. He seems to be leaning towards 'touring'
rather than 'sport'.

tia

 

bit harsh

 

It probably weighs twice or even 3 times as much as the scoot so make
sure he wheels it around the showroom a few times before either
deciding to buy or dropping it on the floor.

 

There have been a myriad of recalls on the F800 series since they came out.
Usual beta testing on the paying customer that is a feature of BMW
Motorrad. I think the F800 is pretty stable now but worth checking with a
BMW dealer that any mods have been carried out.

Belt drive is excellent. Motor goes well. Quite light. Expensive, though.
BMW dealer servicing costs are very high, especially in the SE. I have an
excellent independent in Cardiff and would recommend your colleague sources
one local to him before considering a BMW.

If buying used then also look at the Yamaha TDM900. Depreciates a lot so
can be a good buy used.

 

You're making a big assumption that he rides something designed for a
child.

For BMW levels of mass, the F800S is a lightweight at 182kg which is 15kg
less than a proper scooter, the Tmax.

 

I was pretty impressed at how light it was when I checked a couple out
at my local BMW dealer before Christmas. Saying that I also thought the
R1200GS was much lighter than I was expecting.

 

DozynSleepy wrote:

They can make them as light as they like, I still think they're shit
and not worth the price.

 

30kg less than my 1150GS - BMW used a water cooler bottle in their
advertising to put the difference into perspective.

Much of the apparent "lightness" is due to the boxer engine. This makes the
CofG fairly low, making the bike short arse friendly.

 

nearly 5 hours. You wanna pull your finger out you slacker

 

Heh, this was a main dealer so the prices were reassuringly expensive.
Both the bikes seemed pretty good, although not enough for me to want to
give up my drink allowance to pay for one.

 

I am surprised that the beemer is that light, most of them are bloody
heavy. OTOH it is still 3 time the weight of the shopping trolley and
around twice the weight of most modern 125 scoots.

 

They've only been making a range of lightish single cylinder bikes since
the mid 1990s and the lightish parallel twins since 2006.

 

Not sure if I mentioned it at the time, but though I found him excellent
on quality and price for what he did, I was a little put off by the
advice received.

He was keen to replace a tyre that "the local police would probably book
you for" but clearly had over a mill left to the wear marks. Seven
months later (ok only a thousand or so miles later), it's gone through
an MOT with the same tyre on.

He also wanted to book it in to have one of the drive bearings replaced
as "it was drying out and could clearly be heard when the bike was
bounced up and down" which having checked it later turned out to be the
seat rubbing against the plastics.

I suspect the former was just him being cautious, and the latter quite
probably a genuine mistake, however I could easily have ridden out a
couple of hundred quid poorer than I needed to if I'd taken the advice
on offer.

 

I haven't found him to be pushy with work needed.[1] He is a bit over-
cautious with things like brake pads. He's told me at the last 2 services
that my front pads won't last to the next service. I've been to Austria
twice and have been commuting to Cardiff for a few months on them.

 

About time you understoof that nobody else shares your passion for this
thing ;-)

 

It's not a patch on the original 850...

 

<refuses stinky bait>